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Corsair Carbide Air 540 Review

Corsair Carbide Air 540 Review

Manufacturer: Corsair
UK price (as reviewed): £117 (inc VAT)
US price (as reviewed): $140 (ex TAX)

Dual-chamber cases are nothing new. In fact, examples such as YeongYang’s cube server case is over 10 years old. As such, while it might sound harsh, a lot of the hype surrounding Corsair’s new Carbide Air 540 that dubbed it as out-of-the-box thinking is simply down to inexperience and over-excitement. However, there’s definitely something appealing about these types of cases that gets you all enthusiastic about the prospect of building a system into one.

The huge towers doing the rounds at the moment are just that – huge, and we’ve seen many instances where they literally don’t fit under a desk. By splitting a cube case into two compartments, you essentially gain the best of two worlds – enough space to build a tidy system with ample space for water-cooling hardware, and also a relatively compact case, at least in terms of depth and height.

Of course there’s no point just copying a design that was around ten years ago because it simply won’t work. These days you need SSD mounts, 140mm fan mounts and decent cable routing for starters. For this reason, Corsair has of course applied some very modern tweaks to the Carbide Air 540 that make it very much a case your modern enthusiast will be interested in. We’re particularly keen on putting Corsair’s claim of it being ‘the best air-cooling case in the world’ to the test.

Corsair Carbide Air 540 ReviewCorsair Carbide Air 540 Review
The Carbide Air 540′s bulk makes it look deceptively large, when in fact it’s only a couple of centimetres taller and deeper than the BitFenix Prodigy. It’s the fact that the PSU and 5.25in mounts have been shifted to the second chamber that meant Corsair could shrink the other dimensions of the case, yet there’s still loads of room to spare inside. The front panel definitely grew on us as we played with it for a few hours, too – it looks rather spartan, but in a ruggedly good way.

The front is as plastic as the inside of your average Asian-made family car, but the lop-sided features, including a huge top-to-bottom grille and front panel mean you instantly forget about this, especially as the case in general is extremely well-made and solid – there’s no rattling here. The only real issue cosmetically-speaking is the rotated 5.25in bays – the best thing to install here would be two bay reservoirs perhaps catering for two water-cooling loops in two coolant colours. Of course not all of us can be as extravagant, but it’s unlikely fan controllers or optical drives are going to look particularly attractive, or be all that practical, here.

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By far our favourite feature is the huge side window and before you ask – which someone always does – no the 5.25in bays aren’t visible because they’re in the other chamber. Hooray! Coupled with the fact the PSU is hidden in the rear chamber, the Carbide Air 540 really is a tidy system-lover’s delight, because all that will be on show is the motherboard, graphics card and any cooling gear you have installed.

While the case’s design results in some features of its own, others are a little bare. There are two USB 3.0 ports, but that’s it – no fan control, no lighting and only a front dust filter. At a little over £100, you’re still getting a lot of case for your money and once again Corsair probably has the excuse that you should be considering one of its all-in-one liquid coolers with their fan control software instead.

Corsair Carbide Air 540 ReviewCorsair Carbide Air 540 Review
However, little niggles like the lack of a dust filter on the bottom of the case, which has large vents beneath the hard disk mounts, and cable ties rather than anything more lavish to secure cables in the otherwise excellent cable routing system, are flies in the ointment of what is so far a very promising case.

Specifications

  • Dimensions (mm) 332 x 415 x 458 (W x D x H)
  • Material Steel, plastic
  • Available colours Black (reviewed)
  • Weight 8kg
  • Front panel Power, reset, 2 x USB 3, stereo, microphone
  • Drive bays 2 x external 5.25in, 2 x internal 3.5in/2.5in, 4 x internal 2.5in
  • Form factor(s) EATX, ATX, micro-ATX
  • Cooling 2 x 140mm/3 x 120mm front fan mounts (2 x 140mm fans included), 1 x 140mm rear fan mount (fan included), 2 x 120mm/140mm top fan mounts (fan not included)
  • CPU cooler clearance 170mm
  • Maximum graphics card length 320mm
  • Maximum PSU length 200mm

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AMD to launch ARM processor, Seattle, in 2014

AMD to launch ARM processor, Seattle, in 2014

AMD Seattle is due to arrive next year, but not look like a lightbulb.


With its 2013-2014 server roadmap, AMD has revealed that its first 64-bit ARM-based server chips, codenamed Seattle, are set to be sampled in Q1 2014 and ready for production in the second half of 2014.

While the chips were first announced last year, the roadmap has shed light on previously unknown details about them. Seattle will be based on ARM’s Cortex-A57 cores and a 28nm manufacturing process, and will be made available first as an 8-core CPU and secondly as a 16-core one. As AMD is keen to emphasise, upon its release, Seattle will be the industry’s first such server system on chip. It will also be the first AMD processor to utilise its Freedom Fabric technology, acquired in its buyout of SeaMicro last year.

AMD expects its new chip family to ‘provide category-leading throughput as well as setting the bar in performance-per-watt’ and to ‘set the bar in power-efficient server compute’. It also claims that it will outperform the recently announced AMD Opteron X-Series of processors, based on AMD’s own Jaguar cores, by between two and four times, and expects Seattle to reach speeds of at least 2GHz.

As well as 128GB DRAM support, Seattle will deliver ‘extensive offload engines for better power efficiency and reduced CPU loading, server calibre encryption, and compression and legacy networking including integrated 10GbE.’

AMD to launch ARM processor, Seattle, in 2014

Details were also unveiled new about the company’s Berlin and Warsaw processors. The former will be available as both a CPU and APU and based on a set of four of AMD’s upcoming 28nm Steamroller cores. Berlin is designed to offer almost eight times the gigaflops per-watt of the Opteron 6386SE processor and consequently offer a large rack density. It will also be the first server APU built on AMD’s Heterogeneous System Architecture, which AMD claims ‘makes [GPGPU] programming as easy as C++.’

Finally, Warsaw is AMD’s next-generation offering in its two and four socket enterprise platforms, and as such is optimised for heavily virtualised enterprise workloads. Set to supercede the Opteron 6300 family, the Warsaw CPUs will be based on 12 or 16 of AMD’s existing 32nm Piledriver cores and provide ‘significantly improved performance-per-watt’ over said family while also providing an apparently seamless migration path from one to the other.

Both Berlin and Warsaw are expected to be available in the first half of 2014.

AMD to launch ARM processor, Seattle, in 2014

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Nvidia to license graphics technology to other companies

Nvidia to license graphics technology to other companies

Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia CEO – Photo: Reuters/Stephen Lam


Nvidia has announced it will begin licensing its graphics technologies to other companies, allowing for the likes of Apple and Samsung to incorporate previously protected technologies into their products.

The move is a new approach for the company as it tries to further take advantage of the burgeoning mobile market, following its modest success with its Tegra line of mobile processors.

“The bottom line is the world has changed and we’re expanding our business model to serve markets that we historically could not serve by selling chips alone,” Nvidia CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang said.

Although Nvidia has already made an entrance to the mobile processor space, the new licensing deal will enable the company to gain revenue from other mobile processor manufacturers such as Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung. While this route would produce much lower return per chip, it is likely to be a more stable business model.

The move will, however, put Nvidia into direct competition with a couple of established players: ARM and Imagination Technologies. Both British-based outfits already license mobile-oriented graphics technologies to most of the key players in the market, with Imagination Technologies also having backing from Apple and Intel who hold significant stakes in the company.

ARM of course licenses its mobile CPU technology to Nvidia – and every others significant mobile processor manufacturer – so it will be interesting to see if the two continue to work together in the longer term.

For the time being Nvidia has recently launched Tegra 4, which is debuting in the company’s mobile game console, Shield. Longer term it will also be integrating LTE features on upcoming versions of Tegra, making them compatible with so-called 4G networks. Currently their lack of LTE technology is harming Nvidia, Intel and other chipmakers as they try to secure design wins. In the 4G space, Qualcomm is dominating the market.

Despite the positive long term prospects for going the licensing route, Huang said that Nvidia’s revenue from licensing would trail that from chip sales for a long time, but that gross margins would improve as the company wins more royalties.

Source: Reuters

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Snapcat: Because cats like selfies too?


(Credit:
Snapcat)

“O brave new world, that has such felines in it!”

Does your cat feel that a lack of opposable thumbs is seriously hindering its ability to be beautiful on the Internet? Never fear; Snapcat is here!

The Android app is designed to let cats snap photos of themselves with their own paws. Following the principle of cats’ fascination with laser pointers, it shows a dancing dot on your phone’s screen. When your cat goes to bat at the dot, the touch of its paw fires off a picture from the front-facing camera.

Look at me!


(Credit:
Snapcat)

It works, but its design leaves something to be desired. To look at the photos your cat has snapped, you have to press the volume button on your phone. From there, the only option is “share”; tapping that leads you to an editing page, where you can pretty up the photo using Aviary tools before sending it out to social networks.

It should be noted that there’s no option to delete the photos, but force-quitting and restarting the app seems to get rid of them. It should also be noted that the photos do not appear anywhere in your phone’s gallery.

Then, when you finally go to share it, the app takes you directly to the EyeEm social-network page, with no option to post elsewhere, even though the app’s description claims that you can post images to both Facebook and Twitter.

We have to admit that we like the idea. Implementation, on the other hand, needs a lot of work. It’s free, so by all means download it and give it a go. However, until the app can clean itself up a bit, we’ll have to recommend just continuing taking pet pictures yourself.

As you were.

(Source: Crave Australia)

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Mars: War Logs Review

Mars: War Logs Review

Developer: Spiders
Publisher: Focus
Platform(s): PC (reviewed), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
UK Price: £14.99
US Price: $19.99

We recommend Mars: War Logs. That’s a curt appraisal that goes against the score you’ll see on the next page. It’s a strange recommendation, because it’s not one that coincides with a suggestion that the game is particularly good. It’s instead an interesting bookmark for people who’ve a formal interest in game design or criticism. If that’s you, it’s something you should look at, because it’s a great way to understand the difference between a game that gets everything right and one that stumbles spectacularly in so many little areas it entirely fails to justify itself.

Mars: War Logs has a lot of the hallmarks of an excellent game. It’s got a combat system that’s learned from The Witcher’s tactical dodging, parrying and negative status-conferring. It has the kind of exploration and attempts at character work that you’d expect out of Mass Effect, plus a morality system and ways to have a sense of authorship over the way missions end. There’s an interesting crafting system that has you adding components to your existing gear in order to convey different advantages and there’s a plot that can weave and turn with your actions.

Mars: War Logs Review

None of this emulation, nor the ideas that the game progenerates, succeed and instead appear as if the designers have missed the purpose of their inclusion.

Set in Distant-Future Mars, you play as Roy, a prisoner of war captured by nebulously defined Baddies. The aim of the first act is to escape from your imprisonment and subsequent chapters involve you attempting to overthrow evil by way of helping out strangers with menial tasks that usually involve hitting people with improvised weaponry. The character motivations are rote and the plot itself seems like justification for progression rather than something that works interactivity around it’s own storytelling aims.

Partly why game stories are worth seeing isn’t for their eventual culmination or the events along the way, it’s the character work that propels the player forward. You won’t want to talk to anyone more than you have to, the dialogue is awfully written ([url=www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovAJdz_932w]here’s a link to just one example[/url]‎) and the voice acting is just as sub par.

Mars: War Logs Review

Progressing through that story will involve hundreds of minor skirmishes. There are four types of enemy you can fight. Humans and Mars-Indigenous Moles are almost directly comparable, rarer Technomancer enemies wielding a variety of defensive abilities offer slightly more challenge. Finally, you’ll fight “dogs” (actually massive quadrupedal prawns) who can only be attacked from behind. War Logs suggests it contains a variety of options, but the most effective method is constantly rolling away from danger and performing brief melee attacks when it suits you for every single enemy in the game. You’ve the ability to increase the effectiveness of your “technomancer” abilities that can boost weapon damage, provide a shield or shoot projectiles, but it’s just not as effective as pumping skill points into improving the aforementioned rolling tactic as there’s a cap on how much you can use those abilities without recharging.

You’ve partner AIs that join you in combat, but only a character that’s brought into your party in the last act of the game has any effectiveness as a fighter rather than a tool with which to draw some of the enemies away from you and eventually faint. There’s no way to outfit these partner characters with better equipment nor specialise their skills in any way. It leaves you feeling as if there’s barely a reason for their assistance.

Mars: War Logs Review

Often during a mission you’ll have to take back something that’s stolen or collect money backtracking constantly through the same areas. You’ll usually be given a choice between intimidating the target or hopping into a fight. Intimidation might not work and could transition into combat anyway. This kind of system works elsewhere because you’d have the option to put stat points into your abilities to talk people into agreeing with you. Here the only character upgrades you can make are directly tied to your effectiveness in battle. You don’t get the sense that you’re making decisions based on the route you’ve chosen for your character, instead it’s just selecting an option that may spare you a fight or not work and is essentially the same choice presented differently.

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Candy Crush developer King preparing IPO

Candy Crush developer King preparing IPO

Candy Crush Saga became the most popular game on Facebook earlier this year.


Rising mobile and social star King, the publisher of the hugely successful Candy Crush Saga is rumoured to be preparing an Initial Public Offering (IPO) according to the Wall Street Journal.

An anonymous source talking to the financial publication states that King is in talks with several major banks including The Bank of America, Credit Suisse Group and JP Morgan to prepare for the process of going public.

King chief executive Riccardo Zacconi has talked about floating an IPO before although company spokespeople are currently not confirming or denying the story.

King entered the social gaming scene in 2003 and is currently the second largest developer operating on Facebook behind Zynga. Candy Crush Saga claimed the top spot for games on Facebook in January this year and across King’s entire portfolio of 150 games the company has clocked up 190 million monthly and 70 million daily players.

Earlier this month, King dropped all in-game ads from its titles in a bid to focus on ‘an uninterrupted entertainment experience’ for its players across web, tablet and mobile platforms. The company instead appears to be relying on in-app purchases to drive revenue, something that King is reportedly very good at.

King will be following in the footsteps of Zynga, another hugely successful social games company that rose through Facebook and launched its IPO. It will however be looking to avoid the precedent set by Zynga as most of the company’s financial results following its IPO have identified a significant decline in the company, backed up by a steady exodus of staff on all levels.

The other similarity that will be drawn by industry commentators is between King and Angry Birds creator Rovio, which has been making IPO-related noises since the announcement of its 2011 earnings. In February this year however, Rovio made it clear that the company was in a position to fund its own growth, suggesting that an IPO was no longer on the cards.

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EA Sports Ignite engine won’t work on current PCs

EA Sports Ignite engine won't work on current PCs

FIFA 14 will not be coming to the PC due to the platform’s inability to run the Ignite engine.


The new Ignite engine that props up all of EA Sports’ next generation titles will not run on the PC or the Wii U.

The lack of PC support was explained away by EA Sports executive vice-president Andrew Wilson saying that most players don’t have computers that could run it.

According to Wilson, the release of FIFA 11 back in 2010 resulted in many players being unable to play the game because they did not have an adequately powerful computer at the time and the company feels this would be repeated if Ignite-powered titles were released on the PC today.

‘Even though there were some PCs on the marketplace that could run that engine, the lion’s share of PCs on the marketplace could not,’ Wilson told Polygon. ‘And the majority of the gamer base that was playing the game on PC did not have a PC spec that would work with that.’

Wilson further explains that the Ignite engine has been built for the closed Xbox One and PS4 hardware and not the open hardware of an average PC. He concedes that with a few adjustments, the Ignite engine might make the jump to PC in the future.

The current reported specifications of the PS4 and Xbox One suggest that each console is the equivalent of a moderately powerful PC as opposed to anything that will challenge a high-end gaming rig. Both consoles are listed as having 8GB of RAM and GPUs derived from the AMD Radeon 7000 series.

The decision not to make adjustments in order for the engine to run on a PC will be baffling to many considering that the game will have originally been programmed and initially tested on a PC.

The lack of Wii U support for the Ignite engine is less surprising with EA’s previous declarations that they have nothing currently development for Nintendo’s latest offering. EA developer DICE has also abandoned its efforts to get the Frostbite 3 engine, the engine powering a wide range of EAs titles, running on the Wii U after tests with its predecessor proved disappointing.

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GAME opening Xbox-only store in London

GAME opening Xbox-only store in London

A high street GAME store.


UK game retailer, GAME, is to launch an Xbox-only branch this coming Thursday 20th June, in London.

The store will be opened at the Boxpark Shoreditch, a pop-up mall built from old shipping containers and situated in East London.

GAME has described the upcoming store as a “one-of-a-kind concept” and “a brand new gaming and retailing experience”.

Inside it will feature gaming stations, head-to-head gaming areas, a Microsoft Surface display and of course the latest Xbox hardware and games.

While the experience sounds nice, the timing is intriguing as the impending launch of Xbox One is likely to stifle sales. While there is clearly a benefit in simply getting the Xbox name out there in the run up to the Xbox One launch, a nationwide in-store effort would surely have had greater impact.

The Xbox One launches in November priced at £425 / €499 / $499. It’s announcement has been marred in controversy over the new console’s restriction of used-game sales and requirement for daily Internet access to keep the device authenticated. In contrast the PS4 does not have these restrictions so has thus far received a more positive reaction.

Will you be popping in to the Boxpark GAME store? Let us know what it’s like if you do.

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Huawei Ascend P6 Preview


The Huawei Ascend P6 is the Chinese company’s latest flagship smartphone, and is the worlds slimmest, at just 6.18mm thick.

However, while flagship for Huawei, the Ascend P6 is more of a premium mid-range handset in terms of features and design. Its screen is 720p rather than 1080p and, quite astonishingly considering the time of its launch, it lacks 4G LTE, but on the other hand its chassis is finely crafted from aluminium. To find out just what the deal is, we got hands on.

Huawei Ascend P6 Preview

One thing that is clear about the Huawei Ascend P6 is the influence from Apple. This phone sports machined aluminium sides and back and really could be mistaken for the iPhone 5 at a glance.

However, similarities apart, this is a lovely handset. That aluminium construction lends the phone a near iPhone 5-equalling level of build quality that just feels great in the hand. Also helping immensely are the proportions of the phone. While the record-breaking 6.18mm slimness we could take or leave – though notably we didn’t find it so thin as to be unwieldy – the narrowness makes the phone sit nice and snug in the hand. In comparison the Galaxy S4 is nearly 5mm wider and 6mm taller – that may not sound like a lot but in the hand it makes quite a difference.

This size difference may well be somewhat down to the smaller screen that the P6 uses but in fact that just highlights another way in which this phone trumps the S4 for ergonomics. The smaller 4.7in screen combined with the smaller body makes it significantly easier to get to grips with.

Huawei Ascend P6 Preview

Even better are the main buttons that are ranged down the right edge of the phone. Up top is the power button while below is the volume. Both are perfectly placed so as to fall easily under finger or thumb, have just the right level of click and are nicely machined from aluminium – we’re talking class-leading stuff here.

We’re also fans of the use of on-screen buttons for Home, Back and Multi-tasking. Yes, it means you loose some screen space in some scenarios but equally it means there’s a decent amount of space below the screen to rest your thumb and grip the phone, unlike on the Galaxy S4 in particular.

The good news continues with the addition of a microSD slot that allows for cheap and simple upgrading of the phone’s storage.

However, not all is rosy. For a start the battery is inaccessible without dismantling the phone. Then there’s the placement of the charging socket, which is on the top edge – ever heard of a phone dock Huawei? But the worst is where Huawei has placed the headphone socket: right at the bottom of the left edge. This means the headphone cable gets in the way in almost every conceivable situation that the phone finds itself in – in the hand, in the pocket, when gaming…

Huawei Ascend P6 Preview

Although the P6 lacks a 1080p screen, in use it doesn’t feel remotely lacking (indeed there’s arguably an advantage of a slightly lower resolution screen as it requires less power to run and needs less processing power). Its 720p LCD screen is still very sharp (it’s basically iPhone Retina matching) and uses the latest laminated screen manufacturing techniques such that the image appears right on the surface, rather than below the front glass. The result is superb viewing angles and bright colours. How it fares in darker lighting conditions when watching a video, we’ll have to wait and see.

As for the phone’s interface, it felt suitably speedy, thanks to its quad-core 1.5GHz chip (Huawei K3V2) and the use of Android 4.2.2. The look and feel is very different to stock Android as Huawei has gone to town customising it – and we had precious little time to really get to grips with it – but from what we could see it was largely cosmetic and all the key functions still work as any users of vanilla Android would expect.

Huawei was certainly keen to talk up the many funky features that its Emotion UI includes but five minutes at a press event is hardly time enough to do any of them justice.

Huawei Ascend P6 Preview

Likewise the rear camera, which is an 8megapixel BSI model. With an F2.0 lens, it has a faster optic than both the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S4. While this may sound impressive, the HTC One had a equally fast lens and that phone’s camera has far from lived up to expectations.

Taking a few snaps with the P6, the camera seems nice and speedy in operation with a clean interface – and that extra thumb space really helps for when holding the phone in landscape orientation. When it comes to image quality, we’ll have to wait and see

All told, from what we’ve seen so far, the Huawei Ascend P6 is going to be a phone well worth considering if it really does come to market at around £300-£350. It’s in fact a shame there are a few slipups like the headphone socket placement as without those it could have enough going for it to take on the likes of the HTC One, iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4 right at the top of the smartphone league.

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Huawei unveils Ascend P6, world’s slimmest smartphone

Huawei unveils Ascend P6, world's slimmest smartphone

The Huawei Ascend P6 will be available in white, black and pink!


Huawei has unveiled what it claims is the world’s slimmest smartphone, in the shape of the 6mm thick Huawei Ascend P6.

The P6 is the company’s new flagship phone with largely a specs list to match. Powered by a quad-core 1.5Ghz processor, it sports a 4.7in LCD screen with ‘in-cell’ technology, an 8megapixel rear camera, and a stylish, very iPhone 5-esque design.

Said design has, according to the Nick Woodley (Huawei UK design), been inspired by paper – that stuff which smartphones are largely replacing – with the company aiming for slimness and simplicity. At just 6.18mm thick and weighing 120g, it’s fair to say this is something the company has achieved.

However, similarities with the iPhone 5 are so strong that we wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple suing, just as it did with Samsung over that company’s Galaxy S line. Differentiating itself somewhat, the Ascend P6 will not just be available in black and white but pink too!

“The HUAWEI Ascend P6 is a star among smartphones with its industry-leading design, high-quality camera, and intuitive user interface, Huawei’s proprietary Emotion UI,” said Richard Yu, Chief Executive Officer, Huawei Consumer Business Group.

Other key features of the phone include a super-slim 2000mAh battery, which should be large enough to provide this phone with all-day battery life. However, the rear cover isn’t removable for quickly swapping the battery out.

Rather more serious omissions, though, come in the form of the screen, which is only 720p rather than 1080p, and the lack of 4G LTE. Although by no means crucial, their absence does put this phone a step behind most of its key competitors.

On the flip side, one advantage over many is the inclusion of a microSD slot for expanding the storage.

As for the camera, Huawei was keen to talk up its low light capabilities but there doesn’t seem to be any physical reason why it should be better than competitors. With an F2.0 lens and 8megapixel BSI sensor it relies on its software prcoessing to make the most of its images. One such feature is a quick ‘Beauty Level’ adjustment that smooths out skin tone for a more youthful look.

The phone’s software somewhat inevitably has an extensive set of customisations in the shape of Huawei’s Emotion UI. Features include the Automated Discontinuous Reception (ADRX) and Quick Power Control (QPC) which are said to improve battery life by 30%. Under the tweaks it’s running Android 4.2.2.

Chairman of TalkTalk and Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone, took to the stage at the launch event to announce that the companies would be stocking the device. This marks the first time the companies have stocked any Huawei phones, with Dunstone talking up the fact that this phone marks the real coming of age of Huawei as a global brand, proclaiming “there’s a new competitor on the blocks”. Apple, HTC, Samsung – take note.

The Huawei Ascend P6 will be arriving worldwide in August, retailing for 449euros.

We’ll be back with our first impressions shortly.

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